Investigating Dingwall As Şingvöllr
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- 1 - 'reminding me in its name of… Thingvalla' Investigating Dingwall as Þingvöllr D. D. MacDonald - 2 - Cover illustration The Town of Dingwall by J. H. Clark, published 1824 Courtesy of Dingwall Museum Trust - 3 - Contents Cover Page 1 Acknowledgements 2 Contents 3 Preface 4 SECTION ONE: Where was the assembly place which gave Dingwall its name? 1.1 The name Dingwall 5 1.2 The supposed þing meeting place 7 1.3 The Search for Þingvöllr 10 SECTION TWO: The setting in which Þingvöllr lies 2.1 Þingvöllr in its environs 25 2.2 Dingwall in Ross 37 SECTION THREE: The Question –When did Norsemen first settle in Ross? 3.1 Introduction 39 3.2 Archaeology as Evidence 39 3.3 Norse place-names as Evidence 40 3.4 Annals as Evidence 51 3.5 The Icelandic Book of Settlements as Evidence 56 3.6 Orkneyinga Saga as Evidence 65 SECTION FOUR: Concluding Summary 4.1 Concluding Summary 86 Appendix A : Ross: from the death of Thorfinn to 1226 97 Appendix B : Mackenzie Monument: Cromartie burial place 104 Bibliography 108 - 4 - 'Dingwall, the capital of Ross-shire reminding me in its name of the Icelandic capital Thingvalla…' Robert Southey, Journal of a Tour in Scotland, 4th September 1819 In August 2012 The Highland Council, Dingwall and Seaforth Ward, commissioned me to write a history-based investigative paper on Dingwall as Þingvöllr. The paper was envisaged to be one element of the Council’s participation in the international THING Project, an initiative of the European Northern Periphery Programme. The THING project is a partnership based on the Thingsites that are the assembly sites spread across North West Europe as a result of the Viking diaspora and Norse settlements. Partners in the Project Gulen Municipality, Norway Thingvellir National Park, Iceland Shetland Amenity Trust, Scotland Department of Archaeology, Orkney College, Scotland The Highland Council, Scotland Kunningarstova, Tourist Information Centre, Faroe Islands The Thingsite on behalf of which The Highland Council entered the THING Project is the town of Dingwall, the place-name of which is derived from Old Norse Þingvöllr, meaning parliament field. Nothing has been firmly known of Dingwall as a Thingsite beyond the place-name. This has led historians to refer to Dingwall’s role as a centre of Norse government in early medieval Northern Scotland as 'an enigma'. One of the main demands of the THING Project is for 'more in-depth information about the Thingsites and their history'. This paper seeks to meet that demand in the case of Dingwall, as far as historical sources might allow. The author was invited to conduct a historical search to confirm the location in Dingwall of the Norse Thingsite, to present an explanation of the concept of Nordic Things and to investigate the possible sources which might throw some light on the origin and history of the Dingwall Thingsite. Sources indicated to the author were local and national historical records; Norse-derived place-names in Ross; relevant archaeological knowledge; annalistic evidence; Icelandic saga, particularly Landnámabók (The Book of Settlements) and Orkneyinga Saga; and relevant evidence from the history of Ross between about 1065 and 1226, the year Dingwall received the charter granted by Alexander II, King of Scots, giving Dingwall the status of a royal burgh. From the sources investigated the author presents considerable detail to the reader. A concluding summary acts both as a conclusion to the investigation and as an executive summary. D D MacDonald, June 2013 - 5 - INVESTIGATING DINGWALL AS ÞINGVÖLLR SECTION ONE: Where was the assembly place which gave Dingwall its name? 1.1 The name Dingwall The town of Dingwall in northern Scotland is located on the east coast of Highland, on the Inner Moray Firth, where it sits at the western end of the Cromarty Firth. In 12261, by grant of his royal charter, Alexander II erected 'Dingwell in Ros' to be a royal burgh possessing the same rights and privileges as the burgh of Inverness.2 Whilst 1226 marks the first entry of Dingwall into historical record, the place-name then recorded tells that the location of Dingwall had an earlier history as the meeting place of a þing (þ pronounced 'th')3, a Scandinavian open-air assembly or parliament; the place-name Dingwall derives from Old Norse Þingvöllr, the meeting field, or plain, on which a þing had met. When in 1791 the erudite Rev. Daniel Rose, submitted his account of his parish of Dingwall for inclusion in the Statistical Account of Scotland, he had no awareness of the Scandinavian origin of the name of his parish. The name was formerly Dingnaval or Dingnavallis, and took its origin from the richness and fertility of the soil of the lower grounds, which form a considerable part of the parish. Rose’s Dingnavallis appears to be a Latinate guess, in which vallis would appropriately mean valley, but the meaning of dingna is untraceable unless it should be a miswriting of digna, meritorious or worthy. Rose might have had in mind Dignavallis, productive valley, as explanation of the Dingwall place-name. Eighteen years later a visitor to Dingwall made a much better informed comment. In early September 1819 the poet Robert Southey accompanied Thomas Telford on a tour of the roads and bridges constructed in the Highlands under the supervision of the great engineer. On September 4th the travellers arrived in Dingwall for an overnight stop and that evening, before slumber on a hard bed in Mrs Ross’s Head Inn, Southey penned in his journal intelligent, but unflattering, thoughts on the town. Dingwall, the capital of Ross-shire (reminding me in its name of the Icelandic capital Thingvalla) is a vile place…. There is a ridiculous obelisk opposite the Kirk.4 1 The charter is dated February 1226. At that time the first day of March was the first day of a new year. 2 Granted in 1179 or 1180 by King William the Lion. 3 'þ' is thorn, the letter of the Old Norse alphabet representing the 'th' sound. 4 Southey, R., Journal of a Tour in Scotland, (London, 1929), p.118 - 6 - Southey’s perception that the place-names Dingwall and Thingvalla probably shared a common Scandinavian origin as Thingsites was a revelation. The fact that Dingwall and Thingvalla shared the same origin in Þingvöllr, the level field on which a þing, a Scandinavian parliament, had met, had been long-lost in the mists of time. Gaelic speakers seem never to have applied the name Dingwall to the place. To them it has been, and yet is, Inbhirphefeoran, a Gaelic place-name of two elements, inbhir, mouth or estuary, and phefeoran, of the Peffeoran. In origin Peffeoran5 is Pictish and means the River Peffer – the clear, fair, or pure river. It was at the mouth of that river, now known as the Peffery, on its south bank, that the medieval burgh of Dingwall was established in 1226. The award to the burgh of the name Dingwall ensured the certain survival of that Norse place- name. Thenceforward Dingwall was the name of the legal community which was the royal burgh. If Dingwall had not been erected and recorded a royal burgh as early as 1226 the place in time almost certainly would have experienced its Gaelic name adapted into English. Inbhirphefeoran is likely to have become Inverpeffer, Innerpeffer, or Peffermouth. What were þings? In the Viking Age, throughout all Scandinavia and where Norsemen settled in the islands of the North Atlantic, including the British Isles, the þing was the basic unit of government. The free men of a particular area gathered at a þing-site to discuss and reach decisions on affairs of justice and government and to settle disputes. Weapons were not allowed to be carried on to the þing-site, which was hallowed ground. Before a þing session began all weapons were laid aside, or were rendered temporarily unusable by being secured with frið-bönd, peace straps. Vápnatak, the re-taking up of weapons, marked the session’s close. It was understood that at þing meetings one freeman’s opinion was as valid as that of any other freeman, but in reality the þing was likely to be dominated by the influential heads of clans and of wealthy families. At the heart of the þing was a court, or council, a closed body of appointed þing- men. All freemen who attended the þing assembly were entitled to petition that court and to view and listen to its proceedings. Hence immediately beside the court’s fenced meeting place there was an area for attending freemen to observe the court in progress and to hear proclamation of decisions reached. Laws decided upon were not written down, but were recited from memory by the lögmaðr or lagh-mann6, the law-man, who presided over the business of the þing, often with the dominant chieftain, or king, at his side. A þing met in the open air on a designated field or meadow, practically always at a place judged to be central to, and most easily accessible from, the settlements it served. Þing-sites were often located adjacent either to a point where routes met, by a ford river crossing, or by a berthing place for ships on the seashore or bank of a navigable river. Þings met at regular intervals, major pings at midsummer and lesser pings twice a year, in spring and in the autumn. Where people gathered at known regular intervals, the exchange of produce, goods and services, as well as festivities of social intercourse, inevitably took place. Gatherings of people attracted both traders and entertainers.